Jake Gagne grabs second Red Bull Rookies Race at Brno
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 9:39AM
;) Tight action on the Brno circuit. |
Now with still one race to go at Misano and only a slender 11-point gap in the points standings Gagne must battle it out in Italy with Danny Kent of Britain who was second in Brno to keep his title hopes alive.
Gagne had a mixed weekend. He qualified 16 after crashing early in qualifying and missed the second session. But he redeemed himself on race day with an excellent start. "I think I was about 5th going into the first corner and just raced from there. There was more wind than yesterday," he said. "That was moving us around a bit but it was more to do with all the guys passing and re-passing. I tried to break away but it wasn't possible so I just had to try and position myself on the last lap, I got into second for the slipstream up the hill and passed Danny (Kent) into the last corner."
The race on the broad, sweeping and very undulating Brno circuit in the Czech Republic offered plenty of opportunities to overtake, but in typical Rookies style it could have gone any way heading into the second last corner. As they approached the final corners there was less than half a second between the pack of eight riders all going for the podium.
Gagne prevailed but he will take no peace from the fact that his arch rival Kent of Britain was a close second while fellow Briton Harry Stafford picked up the minor podium place. Kent admitted he had been outfoxed by the Californian in the last stages of the race: "That's one of my favorite moves and he played it on me, there was nothing I could do. It was a great race, very fair and we all enjoyed it. I wish I hadn't given Jake the points going into the last race in Misano but I'm just going to have to do better there," Kent conceded.
While Italian Kevin Calia, the winner of Saturday's race was right up with the leaders at the half way mark, his chances were gone when he slid off the bike and into the gravel in a series of incidents that also took out Daijiro Hiura of Japan and the two Italians Alejandro Pardu and Alessio Capella.
Misano, the final stop on the racing calendar for 2010 is new to the Red Bull Rookies so this will add yet another dimension to what is surely going to be a very exciting finish. All Red Bull Rookies race on identical KTM RC125 bikes.
Pix: Red Bull Media Data Base
Race 2 Classification
1 Jacob Gagne, USA, 31 minutes 39.860 seconds (143.332 kph)
2. Danny Kent, Britain, +0.045
3. Harry Stafford, Britain, +0.089
4. Brad Binder, South Africa, +0.151
5. Taylor Mackenzie, Britain, +0.267
6. Joshua Hook, Australia, +0.530
7. Niccolo Antonelli, Italy, +0.664
8. Florian Alt, Germany, +0.739
9. Xavier Pinsach, Spain, +10.996
10. Antonio Chiari, Brazil, +11.015
Standings after penultimate race
1 Jake Gagne, USA 150
2. Danny Kent, Britain, 139
3. Daijiro Hiura, Japan, 109
4. Brad Binder, South Africa, 109
5. Daniel Ruiz, Spain, 104.